


Autumn, 1977

by aactionjohnny



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 1970s, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 13:55:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20341219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aactionjohnny/pseuds/aactionjohnny
Summary: Crowley and Aziraphale have a lunch date in the late 1970s, and they come to know the joy of touch.





	Autumn, 1977

**Author's Note:**

> This is pointless but I just wanted some fluff and my job is very boring today so I’ve been churning out one-shots on my phone. That’s three in the last two days....maybe I’m goin through something sjdhhdhdhs
> 
> Crowley’s hair based on David Bowie in “the man who fell to earth” and the cover of his album LOW

1977.

Aziraphale sits on a park bench, beneath the filtering shadow of the leaves of a tree, with a heavy book open in his lap. He pushes his little round glasses up his nose, dreadfully challenged by both the spotty lighting and the text itself. An epic, came out just a few years ago, lauded for its complex narrative and unusual style. He adores it as much as it confounds and offends. And at times, it is so romantic, if he’s allowed to think so…

He hears soft footsteps in the dirt, and he is cast in another shadow, long and thin, a pair of skinny legs before him, standing contrapposto and wilting.

“Crowley!” he says, shutting the book, all analytical thoughts of Pynchon evaporating from his head. He knows he sounds too excited, and he feels the pangs of shame in his heart. To be so thrilled by the sight of him will surely earn him punishment, compounded over his millennia of adoration...Oh, but what a sight he is. His hair is soft as ever, parted down the middle, falling loosely to his cheeks, tucked behind his ears, a few stray strands escaping and framing his eyes. Aziraphale wishes he could see them beneath those dark glasses, frames patterned with snakeskin. He wears a black shirt so tight against his chest, beneath a blood-red corduroy jacket with a black sheepskin collar, upturned against the chilly wind. “So good to see you.”

“Afternoon, Angel. What’s that you’ve got?  _ Newer _ testament?” He taps the cover of  _ Gravity’s Rainbow _ with a trademark nonchalance.

“Hardly,” he says, tucking the book beneath his arm. “It’s...about the Blitz.”  _ Remember?  _ He wants to ask,  _ when you made me fall in love with you all over again? _ He stands, straightening out his pale beige pea coat. He does adore the chillier months. Layer upon layer of clothing, keeping him warm as if he’s hibernating with the same gusto as his dear demonic friend. “Shall we?” he asks, tempted to offer him an arm. But he stills his affection. One never knows how nearby the eyes of Heaven are. And Hell, too. Maybe one day they will decide to check in. He lives in fear of that moment, has come up with thousands of excuses for why they spend so much time together. Trying to show him the light, he’ll say. Gathering intelligence, maybe. Anything but the truth.

Because the truth is something he can barely admit to himself: that he keeps coming back to him like a man addicted, that he is certain they are in love, if he would only just gather the strength to  _ ask, _ maybe they could…

“Angel, got a little...experiment I’d like to try,” Crowley says as they begin their walk to the cafe.

“If it’s one of your little demonic schemes, you can count me out. I’ll not get in trouble again—“

“No, no it’s nothing like that…” he goes on, but he won’t look at him. “A more...personal thing.”

“Oh? Are you going to grow out your mustache again?”

“Dammit, Angel, I’m being serious.” He stops walking and turns to face him, his shoulders slouching and his face fixed in a tired frown.

“Right, sorry,” he apologizes, knowing that his chiding jokes are his last defense against the tenderness he feels. “What’s on your mind, dear?”

A smile pulls at one side of Crowley’s lips.

“It’s just that, you know. This thing we’ve got here.”

“...thing?”

“Don’t be thick,” he snaps, but still he gives him a bashful smile. He looks to the ground then, stuffing his hands deeper into his pockets. “We never... _ express _ anything, do we? All these years and I’ve never even…” He hesitantly removes a hand from one of his deep, warm pockets, and brushes his knuckles against the back of Aziraphale’s hand. “Guess I’ve been afraid we’d burst into flames or something.”

“A-ah…” he stammers, a thrilling numb feeling rushing through him then, even at the slightest touch. Electrifying. “Well...go on then.” He will always be the coward here. He forces Crowley to make all the moves, and then he dares reproach him for going too fast…

Crowley smiles and slips his hand against Aziraphale’s open palm. It feels like some sort of retribution, absolution, that innocent touch, and he can’t help but squeeze his hand and sigh.

“Well...we’ve not burned to death,” Aziraphale says, a distinct cracking in his voice, so high and chipper in his anxiety. 

“Yeah…” Crowley is staring down between them, running his thumb across Aziraphale’s palm, biting his lower lip, gazing as if in awe of it. “S’nice, right?”

“Ever-so,” Aziraphale says, though he is eager to get to lunch, so he tugs him along. “Oh, you don’t suppose anyone will shout at us? We do appear to both be men.”

“Hn. Hadn’t thought about it.” He does not let go, however. “I mean, it’s not like I can’t just scare them off.”

Aziraphale hums in agreement, and their hands swing between them in a slow and easy rhythm. That touch, that sensation, it seems to send a newfound warmth up his arm, into his heart, sending him all aflutter in the cool, late-autumn air. To think, all this time, he could have just reached out, taken his hand, maybe held it forever. He does wonder what else they could get away with. But, ah, he mustn’t let his mind travel to some unseemly place. Surely to partake in anything more would alert his superiors. Surely that would be enough of a reason for them to inquire as to what he’s up to.

But still, the look of Crowley in the changing leaves...they match his hair, his eyes. He seems to belong in the autumn, to be all the more beautiful when bathed in warm, warm colors. He has always been heat incarnate. He has always been a burning fire in Aziraphale’s soul. In a way, Aziraphale is  _ proud _ of himself for not touching him sooner. He is so strong a temptation. Perhaps sent by God to test him, and finally he is beginning to fail. She is that cruel, he knows. To present him with something so beloved, but that surely means his doom. But here they are, walking hand-in-hand, basking in immeasurable joy, and he’s not been forced to fall to Hell. Maybe, just maybe, he can test his luck just a little.

Holding his breath, he stops walking, holding fast onto Crowley’s hand, and he turns to him, clumsily pressing his lips to his cold cheek. It last very briefly, and he is quick to turn away, to try and keep walking, but Crowley pulls on his hand, and he can’t get away. He pulls him back, close, face-to-face.

“What was that for?” he asks softly, though with so much a teasing tone.

“I—I’m sorry, perhaps I misread the—“

Crowley shuts him up with another kiss, this time on his pale forehead.

“So that’s why humans do such stupid things because they want to kiss people…” he muses quietly, taking his other hand as well. Aziraphale breathes out a nervous, pathetic laugh. “...can I do it properly?” he then asks, pulling off his dark glasses and hiding them away in his coat pocket. The burning yellow makes Aziraphale weak all over, like it always has.

“P...properly?” he asks, insufferably contrary, always playing dumb.

“Yeah,” Crowley says, tilting his head, slowly sinking toward him, pressing his lips just-so against Aziraphale’s. It makes him breathless. Forgetting how to stand, how to keep his toes from curling and his knees from buckling. He squeezes Crowley’s hands. He’s been kissed before, but he decides none of it counts. It was all just idle practice for the very first real thing, with his only real love.

In the distance he hears whistling, and he feels one of his hands bereft of touch. He opens his eyes and looks to the side, sees Crowley giving the bystander a rather rude hand gesture. So malleable Aziraphale is in that moment, he doesn’t even scold him. He just laughs lightly and waves at the stranger.

They’re left alone, and they rest their foreheads together.

“I rather like it,” Aziraphale tells him, and they sway a little, rocking in the soft breeze.

“So what’s this mean, then?”

“Hm?”

“Are we...er— together?”

“I...like to think we’ve always been, my dear. At least a little.”

“Oh—“ 

He adores hearing Crowley fluster.

“Oh?”

“I wanted to ask you properly,” Crowley says. He’s awfully concerned with doing things the  _ right _ way, for a demon.

“By all means…”

“Be with me,” he says, punctuated with a kiss. “I’ll keep lying to my people.” Another soft peck on the lips. “Yours don’t have to know, either.”

He knows it will be difficult, keeping things from them when the love is so strong it seems to shake the dead leaves from the trees that surround them. But standing there, so enthralled, so utterly intoxicated by touch, he finds he cannot care.

“I’m with you,” he says finally. He buries his face in Crowley’s chest for a while, and they embrace in a circle of chirping birds. They seem to sing for them. Their silence is long and comfortable, but after some time, Aziraphale speaks. “Er...will we still be getting lunch?”

Crowley laughs heartily, giving him one final squeeze and a kiss to his crown before pulling away to continue their walk.

“My Angel is ever-peckish,” he says lazily, grabbing his hand and striding onward. “My treat, hm?”

“Oh, that would be so kind, my dear.”

“Don’t say that,” he gently chides, still so opposed to admitting how sweet he really is. “The second I’m able to tear myself away from you for an evening, I’ll be going about my dastardly deeds.”

“And I suppose I will be out doing good,” Aziraphale says cheerily. “Keeping the status quo…”

“That’s all we really have to do. Ah, and get you some food now and then,” he says, snorting to himself.

“You  _ know  _ I have always had an appetite, darling.”

“Darling? I like that one.”

“I have so many of them saved up,” Aziraphale admits. On they walk, toward the cafe, the air already smelling of coffee, pastries, everything Aziraphale adores. All in one place.

**Author's Note:**

> I suppose this could potentially go on to be a longer work but I’m not sure I have the attention span
> 
> Anyway they’re in love please let me know what u think
> 
> Also I did one from the 60s and one from the 70s today I feel like the 80s needs to happen too


End file.
